PARIS (AFP) – Since the start of 2023, month after month, France has been breaking records. Prison populations hit an all-time high on July 1, according to the justice ministry, continuing to rise after reaching 120 percent capacity in April.
For the sixth time in almost as many months, the country’s prison population has reached an all-time high. And for the first time ever, the number of people behind bars exceeded the 74,000 mark on July 1, according to statistics published by the justice ministry.
There are now 74,513 people incarcerated in a country with a prison capacity of 60,666. That is 2,446 more than last year and drastically more than at the start of summer 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic led to a drastic fall in the number of inmates.
Occupancy rates have surged in some areas, reaching a staggering 212 percent in the Perpignan prison in the south of France, for example. Now that a new wave of sentences has been handed out following a week of protests in response to the fatal shooting of Nahel M. at the hands of police on June 27, those percentages are set to balloon.
Overcrowding in prisons is a recurring debate, both in France and in Europe at large. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly criticized France for its “structural problem” regarding occupancy, underlining the “degrading conditions” that come with over-packing jails.
Some French politicians have justified the record-breaking numbers by saying the overcrowding is proof that the French justice system is simply rigorous. In other words, it’s proof that things are working. But Dominique Simonnot, who heads an independent public watchdog group that monitors incarceration in France, says nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it may be part of the problem.
According to Simonnot as well as the International Prison Observatory, among the factors leading to prison overpopulation is the steady increase in immediate hearings, a fast-track procedure that allows a prosecutor to bring a person to trial soon after being taken into custody. More of these immediate hearings mean more people can be sentenced in a shorter amount of time, funneling people into prison at a faster rate. Simmonot says that, 90 percent of the time, the outcome of these fast-track hearings is detention, whether pre-trial or to serve out a sentence.
“The defendant is sent straight into prison or detained on remand,” says Simonnot. “So more immediate hearings mean more incarcerated people.”
Then there are the political factors. Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti, reacting to accusations the French justice system is not strict enough, has consistently called for a “firm” and “rapid” response to crime. As a result, penalties are becoming tougher and sentences are being extended. Penalties for squatting were tripled on July 27, for example, and now squatters risk up to three years in prison and a €45,000 fine whereas before they only faced one year in prison and a €15,000 fine.
“People are spending more time in prison, and fewer people are being released,” says Simonnot.
The issue seems to have reached a deadlock in France politically, despite demands from prison authorities across the country to bring down the soaring population. “There is a fixation on corporal punishment,” says Simonnot, adding some of the challenges are rooted in the culture that surrounds the French justice system.